Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 80

Babies, Bird Babies, and Flower Babies: a 7QT post

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Today is the last day of school. The kids have been bringing home treasures all week, including these two pictures from Julianna’s school:

      

Christian has taken a couple of days off this year to participate in their program for dads–hanging out in the classrooms to model father participation in kids’ lives. I adore that picture of them.

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Speaking of Julianna, she is trying to communicate everything by speech now, which makes life a bit exhausting and daunting, because it’s hard, hard, hard to understand her. There are improvements–I was over the moon last night to hear her say “Sthully Mah-ee!” (Silly Mommy!) Not Bah-ee! And a recognizable S! But here’s the point of this QT: are you ready? Take a wild guess which family member understands her speech the best. Not the parents. Nicholas. Three times this week, he’s understood something I didn’t. “Wye Shim!” she kept saying insistently, as I tore apart my brain trying to figure it out, and Nicholas, in next room, yelled, “No! I’m not watching Fireman Sam! I’m watching Bob the Builder!” (Which he later interpreted for me as “Boh-Bee-Boh.”)

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I’m having another Wildlife Mama and Baby Moment this week. Early this spring, Christian discovered a birds’ nest in the gutter outside our bathroom window. This week we have had a new obsession: watching baby birds. I’ve never managed to get a picture of Mama Bird actually putting the food in the babies’ mouths, but it is fascinating. I don’t hear any squalling, but they look like they’re squalling! I’ve blown over a hundred pictures this week. Mostly I’ve gotten lots of picture’s of a bird’s butt:

and

(Why yes, she is sitting on her babies’ heads. I haven’t figured that one out. She sat there for fully five minutes on his head at one point. Maybe this is Robin Discipline, to keep Baby from dying by hurtling out of a nest that is three stories off the ground. It’s a mystery to me.)

But last night, at last, I got the money picture.

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And since we’re talking about mamas and babies, it’s Mommy and Michael time. I was playing ball on the floor with him the other day when he threw the ball away from me instead of toward me, and then, thinking himself tremendously funny, crawled after it, around the corner out of my sight. I listened to his progress across the kitchen floor: ki-DUNK, ki-DUNK, ki-DUNK, ki-DUNK, and thought how long it had been since I had heard that sound. At the far end, he retrieved the ball, got to his feet, and ran back, bare feet on the Pergo: slap-slap-slap-slap.

Not two hours later I was putting him to bed and chewing on him, reveling in the giggles and wishing I could get it on video, when I realized why the videos never satisfy my desire to hear that sound again: because the sound is only a sliver of the enjoyment. The enjoyment of a baby is a full-body experience, engaging all the senses, not just sight and sound. In this case, the feel of skin against my lips, and the smell of cinnamon graham cracker embedded in his face. This revelation has made me experience all my children differently. I’m really thinking about the feel of them when we’re interacting these days. I’m dreading Michael getting bigger. I just love babies, and nobody else wants me chewing on their babies.

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I talked to a genetic counselor about my family’s history of BHD this week. We didn’t quite get to the level of a blood test because of insurance questions that have to be worked out, but we spent over an hour talking through the family history. She had an 8 1/2×11 piece of paper with a family tree in the middle. We got done with my siblings–each of them with a line and extensions for how many kids and what sex–and then she said, “Tell me about your mother’s family.” I looked at her piece of paper and said, “There are ten siblings.” Her pen paused as she, too, surveyed the 5 1/2 inches’ space she had to make that happen, and I laughed. “Yeah, I want to see how you fit all that on there!”

Midway through the process, when we hit a bunch of questions I didn’t know the answer to, I said, “That’s okay, I know there are a bunch of documents on the family’s website.”

Again, this poor woman’s eyes got round. “Your family…has a website?” she said blankly, and I started laughing, because in all the years my family has been having mass political, ahem, debates, via email and coming up with more and better ways to keep an ever-expanding group of people in the know, it never occurred to me that it was weird for a family to devote a website to themselves.

And that got me thinking: later, as I was digging up .pdfs of people’s diagnosis letters, and contacting my cousin for information about her medical history…I realized how amazing, and how beautiful, it is that I’m part of a family that, despite their strongly-held and deeply contrary opinions, is willing to lay out their personal history for each other’s benefit. I feel very blessed, very privileged. Big families rock.

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Nicholas makes me laugh.

My FB status from last night:

Nicholas is the king of killer funny sayings lately. Today he heard the Alma Mater playing on the fake-o carillon at the Alumni Center, and he said with a sigh, “I used to play that song. When I was in college, I played it.”

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And here’s what else is making me happy these days:

And just for a bonus, here’s a link:

“Keep Bad Theology Out Of Oklahoma“. Hear, hear.

Catholic Family Fun (TLL Blog Tour Finale)

It’s the last day of my blog tour, and guess what? I’m going to do something different! If you’ve been around my blog for a while, you have seen several reviews of books by Sarah Reinhard. Sarah and I are both write-at-home Catholic moms writing resources to help parents raise kids with a vibrant faith.

The difference is (well, okay, it’s not the only difference), Sarah is a whole lot funnier than I am. Which makes this book, Catholic Family Fun, entirely appropriate.

Sarah doesn’t think religion has to be so darned serious all the time. Everybody needs to blow off steam sometimes, so from chapter one–”Silly Things to Do Together”–she makes it clear that families need to enjoy their time together, and the faith formation should be tied to what’s taking place in real life.

The first three parts of the book offer lots of ideas for basic fun activities both at home and “abroad.” The vast majority of these activities are not actually religious activities. Rather, they’re things you would do at story time at the library. The “faith angle”–blocked out in boxes after every section–suggests ways to tweak the activities or talk about them afterward to connect them with faith concepts.

Some of my favorite ideas:

Silly stories (think mad lib)
“Opposite season”–a living room beach party in February, for example
An unbirthday party–so if your February birthday girl loves the pool, have a pool party in July
Fun with saint feast days: a scavenger hunt to honor St. Anthony, a nail driving contest for St. Joseph
Christmas ornaments made from canning lids

Part four is more specifically focused on matters of faith, and Catholic faith in particular. These are more in-depth–having the whole family pitch in to build a Mary garden, for instance, or sorting clothes at the crisis pregnancy center. She also challenges parents to take the kids along for adoration and stations of the cross, and honestly? That makes sense; if it’s important to take your kids to Mass even though they aren’t “getting” it yet, then the same is true of the other opportunities for prayer that enrich Catholic life.

I think the hardest part for me is making the leap from “fun” to the religious lesson. Faith matters need to be tied into what is passing in an ordinary day, but even when we recognize the connection, it often feels forced if we draw the lines out loud. But guess what, folks? We’re the parents, and if we don’t draw the lines between ordinary life and faith lessons, the kids will never hear it. We’ve got to get over ourselves.

I’m going to leave you with this little gem of a quote, which I highlighted thinking of myself, and only in retrospect realized was probably intended to be about the kids themselves:

“Sometimes, ‘fun’ is something you don’t realize you’re having until you look back on something, especially if you’re in a certain age range.”

So why exactly am I touting someone else’s book on the last day of my blog tour? Because Sarah’s giving away not one, not two, but three books for Catholic families: This Little Light of Mine: Living The Beatitudes, Catholic Family Fun, and Vinny Flynn’s 21 Ways to Worship. Look at that: in one giveaway package, you’ve got faith in action, faith in fun, and faith in prayer. I think we’ve got you covered. Head on over to Sarah’s place to enter the giveaway!

Guest Post: Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness (This Little Light of Mine Blog Tour, Week 8)

There are people who, when you first meet them, remind you of people who are very dear to you already. In those cases, you learn to love the new acquaintance on the spot. That was my experience with today’s guest, Dr. Tom Papreck, who with his wife Tammy teach NFP in our diocese. I hope his perspective on this topic inspires you.

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Halfway through my second marriage, the five year mark to be precise, I had a sudden change in direction in my faith life.  I had been a little more than a pew potato.  While I had been a Lector and had been involved in the periphery of parish governance I found myself searching for more involvement in the life of the church and something that I could commit to after my retirement which was but five years hence.  The two immediate triggers were a new truck with satellite radio and an invitation from one of our deacons to consider service in the ordained ministry.

For Lent that year I chose to give up listening to all books on tape (with their jarring four letter words) or any news programs and instead promised to invite Mother Angelica and EWTN into my life for all my trips each week to rural health clinics.  It soon became apparent what a slackdog Catholic I had become! The thought gave impetus to the deed and through what seems a divinely inspired restructuring of my medical practice I was able to begin inquiry and discernment into the diaconate. Ultimately my wife and I devoted 5 years of time, talent, treasure and prayer seeking ordination.

Along the way, and separate from the diaconate formation, our diocese recognized that I as a physician and my wife as a former OB nurse would be ideal candidates for training as NFP instructors.  We spent a year of Sunday nights, several hours each of those nights, taking the online course and ultimately becoming certified.  December 2012 as our final classes in the diaconate ended and ordination loomed four months away I was informed that because of an article discussing our new NFP ministry in the diocesan newspaper, a letter objecting to my ordination was received by the bishop…

The good news is that we continue to serve the Church, the Diocese of Jefferson City, our parish, and the Couple to Couple League, but not as an ordained minister and wife.  We have 18 new deacons and their wives to count as our lifelong friends and my very active role as an instituted acolyte here at home.

Did I feel persecuted?  YESSSS! Did I feel angry? YESSS! At first, but mostly sad for me and my “accuser”. This would seem to be a perfect example of the maxim “no good deed goes unpunished” but I prefer to look at it as a major contribution to reducing the temporal punishment for my many sins and as a result as the beatitude says “the Kingdom of Heaven shall be mine” perhaps a little sooner than later.

Dr. Tom Papreck practices family medicine in rural Missouri. He and his wife are highly involved in prolife work, including as teachers of natural family planning for the Couple to Couple League.

The Grass Is Always Greener

Having wrestled anxiety for most of my young adult life, I don’t often go plumbing the depths of my psyche too much anymore. I may be emotionally and psychologically healthy these days, but I’m far from immune to causing myself anguish. Doubt is an inevitable part of the human experience. We doubt God, we doubt those who lead us, those we love, and of course, ourselves. The decisions we’ve made, especially the big ones, sometimes lead us to places that don’t look like what we envisioned, and we start thinking if we’d chosen another path, things might be easier.

This happens to me most often when I’m ticked off at the world, i.e. husband and kids, although the net can certainly be cast wider. But they are my vocation, and so when family life seems really hard, a niggling thought will sometimes come to mind, wondering if I heard the call wrong. I have always been drawn to silence and stillness. Why didn’t I ever consider religious life? A life of prayer, of contemplation, without the familial demands that wear me down, the unceasing noise that shreds my inner peace, the constant busyness that makes it almost impossible to dip into the well of the Spirit. Wouldn’t I be a better disciple if my life was devoted to solitude and prayer?

I learned long ago not to waste time or emotional energy pursuing these thoughts. I’ve realized that they are a) usually related to cyclical crankiness, b) based on an idealized version of religious that is no more realistic than the idealized vision of family life I am comparing mine to, and c) only half the story. After all, the very richness of the life I record on these “pages” is counter-argument enough.

This weekend I finally finished reading Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain. Right at the end, he said this:

“You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again: ‘Solitude, solitude.’ And you have turned around and thrown the whole world in my lap. You have told me, ‘Leave all things and follow me,’ and then You have tied half of New York to my foot like a ball and chain. You have got me kneeling behind that pillar with my mind making a noise like a bank. Is that contemplation?”

Look at that: a contemplative monk, questioning his vocation because–gasp–it’s not contemplative enough. Because he’s got distractions. Because his mind is rattling like a piggy bank. (Oh, that is so me.)

When I first read this quote from Richard Hogan: “Usually, in refusing such a gift from God, a person finds his or her path to heaven more difficult. … it seems that God calls us to the best possible vocation suited to our personalities and talents…”, I interpreted it to mean that I will be a better disciple if I am in a situation that challenges my weaknesses least. But I’m beginning to think that the very soul stretching required by my vocation is what makes me a better disciple. After all, if we’re never challenged, how in the world can we grow? If patience, pride and self-centeredness are my weaknesses (and believe me, they are), then family life, in which patience is tried every moment of every day and self-centeredness is forced by virtue of necessity to give way to self-emptying–family life seems ideally suited to make me a better disciple.

In other words, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence…until you get there and realize what you’ve left behind.

7 Quick Takes

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Alex brought this home from school this week. They had to write a song based on the blues.

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Julianna’s language can be killingly funny. She tries so hard to tell us something, and we listen, we have her repeat, but we are so lost. So we take a stab at it. “Bacon?”

“Doh doh doh doh doh!” she says, rapid fire, with deeply tolerant impatience and an exact imitation of Mommy’s inflection when saying “no” repeatedly.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t translate well to the blogosphere.

Random unrelated cute picture

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We went to a (wwwwwwayyyyyy overpriced) Mothers Day buffet on Sunday. Nicholas brought back his first plate. “This,” he said solemnly, holding up a white square, “is squished cheese.”

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Michael has another ear infection. So for the first time in our parenting career we are having the tubes discussion.

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Michael has also developed a not-so-cute habit of banging his head on things when he’s not happy. It seems a rather self-destructive way to embark on the tantrum stage. Unfortunately, Alex and Nicholas think it’s funny. I’m having to tell them not to laugh at him. I can already see my least favorite stage of parenting; it’s no longer around the bend, it’s just down the stretch a little way. Blech.

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Because I’m pathetic, the news story about Angelina Jolie’s preventive double mastectomy this week was the last nudge I needed to make a couple of doctor appointments I’ve been procrastinating. One of them is minor, the other not so much: I will be getting tested for BHD next week. It’s a genetic condition that runs in families and impacts 50% of people in any family that has it. Except mine, where every single person who has been tested has been positive. It doesn’t have major everyday implications, but certain conditions will be treated differently if you have it, and there are long-term health risks to be watched. So off I go at last.

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I had procrastinated on this decision in part because I didn’t want insurance to have any excuse to deny coverage at any point for anything, with that “pre-existing condition” thing. When I was at my primary care doctor’s office yesterday, we talked about it. “Well,” she said, “the universal health care law took care of that. That’s the best thing about the new health care law–that and free contraceptives.”

I thought: There’s a lot I like about the national health care law, but free contraceptives are on the “what I DON’T like” list. Am I supposed to witness right about now, as to all the practical, non-religious reasons why I think contraceptives are bad for women?

I didn’t. I didn’t have the energy. Or the time. I failed. I know. One of these days I simply must buck up the courage and have the conversation. It’s so weird, the difference between my primary care doctor and my NFP-only OB/gyn. I like my p.c.–I like her a lot, actually. She said “gosh darn” yesterday and I wanted to hug her. But it’s such a different world between her office and his. Hers is fancy, his is…home. Hers, I am always on my guard, because I know my world view is so different and I have to be careful about what I say and what I hear. At his office, I feel completely, totally safe. At home, as I said. It’s just interesting. I know this has got to be a peculiarly “traditional Catholic” kind of difficulty. How do you guys deal with this?

Blessed Are the Peacemakers (TLL Review and Excerpt)

This Little Light of Mine: Living the Beatitudes is written not only for use with children, but to help form the faith of the adults who work with them. Today’s excerpt, from Chapter 7: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God (Celebrating the Saints), comes from the section for children.

Even though our bodies die, our souls live forever. That means we can still pray for people after they’ve left the earth–and they can still pray for us. That’s what we mean when we talk about the “communion of saints.” (Do you remember that phrase from the Creed we pray on Sundays?)

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Different saints are known as “patrons” of certain things because of the way they lived their lives. St. Valentine, for instance, became patron of lovers because he helped Christian couples get married when they were being persecuted in ancient Rome. Learning about the saints helps us understand what other Christians did to stay faithful when they came up against the same kinds of problems we face.

Just Live It:

2. Choose a patron saint for your family–someone you admire, whose work you would like to continue. Keep in mind that whatever you do, it has to be able to weave into the fabric of ball practices, music lessons, and other commitments. Do some digging. Find out about the person–what he was known for; what her background was. Then think creatively about how to celebrate the feast day and–even more importantly–how to incorporate the saint’s example.

(From This Little Light of Mine, Chapter 7)

Because we’re all about building excitement, this week we have TWO reviews to post: one from Leanne of “Life Happens When” and the other by Dorian Speed (will post link when it goes up this afternoon!).

Guest Post: Blessed Are the Peacemakers (This Little Light of Mine Blog Tour, week 7)

Today’s guest post comes from Barb Mecker. Barb is my sister-in-law’s mother and a woman I respect tremendously for her love, faith, and passion for life. I hope you will enjoy her thoughts on making peace in this decidedly unpeaceful world.

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When I hear the Beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the children of God,” I often flash back to my days as a peace activist in the late 60s and early 70s. I participated in anti-war marches, volunteered at the Syracuse Peace Council, and managed the local War Tax Resistance Fund.  We certainly had “saints” to whom we looked for inspiration:  Jesuit priest and poet Dan Berrigan and his brother Phil, Trappist monk Thomas Merton, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, and especially for me, Loretto sisters Mary Luke Tobin, Cecily Jones, and many others. We had secular saints who inspired us as well: singers such as Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and so many others; movie stars such as Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen and Paul Newman. These folks created lots of energy and enthusiasm for the peace movement, probably much like the energy and enthusiasm of children.

Over the years, I have participated at various levels in the anti-nuclear movement, the women’s movement, the protests against the Iraqi War, and the protests to close the School of the Americas (SOA). Mostly though, I had to figure out how to be peaceful in my own life, amidst the stresses of being a wife, mother, teacher, daughter, sister, etc. That to me seemed much more immediate and far more challenging! I really felt far less successful at establishing peace in these personal realms than I did at working for peace on a global level.

Thankfully, I am now retired, my children are grown, and I face far fewer personal challenges to living a somewhat peaceful life than I used to. When I look at issues of peace in the larger world, however, they seem more challenging than ever, both within our own country and within the world, and even within the universe. We don’t really seem to have the inspiring saints that we had during the Civil Rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war days, or even the days of the women’s movement. How do we work for peace in the current age?

Many of us in the Loretto Community have been reading a book by James O’Dea entitled Cultivating Peace:  Becoming a 21st-Century Peace Ambassador. He believes that we must go beyond the traditional ways we have worked for peace—with protests, marches, demonstrations, and even conflict resolution. He is not disheartened by the apparent lack of charismatic leaders because he believes that at this time, each of us is capable of being a global leader. Like Jesus says in the Beatitudes, we must cultivate peace in our own lives first, but with advances in our understanding of culture, psychology, spirituality, mental and physical health, we perhaps have better tools with which to accomplish this. He is also convinced that our own interactions with ourselves and others have an influence on the rest of the world, much like the flapping of butterfly wings can affect the weather in a far off location. Although O’Dea’s work has a bit of a New Age sound to it, it seems to me that this is actually quite similar to our belief about prayer. It turns out that my struggles to figure out how to be peaceful amidst the daily stresses of life may have been more important than my direct work for peace! Certainly this makes it possible for each of us to help create a more peaceful world—and perhaps each of us has a chance to become a saint!

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Barb Mecker and her husband Brian Hammond are co-members of the Loretto Community (Sisters of Loretto and co-members). Barb coordinated the Loretto Volunteer Program for eight years after retiring from a teaching career. She and Brian have four children and nine grandchildren.

We Are Not Lemmings. Are We?

About 2/3 of my mother’s family, eight years ago, before all my cousins started having kids. Note: some of the kids in the picture ARE my cousins.

Can I just say how annoying I find the American obsession with poll-taking? They’ve become so institutionalized, we have come to regard polls as truth: not a reflection of people’s opinions, but a representation of reality.

For instance, last week I ran across an article about a survey in which parents identified their own stress level. The conclusion? The most stressful number of kids is three. This was not a scientific study–just a survey.

There are so many problems with this survey. A friend blogged a whole bunch of them last week, and did a fabulous job, but I have others.

1. This is completely useless “information.” How does it help anyone to know that people with three children self-identify as more stressed than parents of other numbers?

2. It undercuts anyone who is not in the “most stressful” category. Obviously they should just chill, because their life isn’t as bad as they think.

3. Because we are lemmings, we will use useless information like this to “help” us make important decisions on family size. Obviously we should quit at two children, because if we have a third our life is over. We are doomed to be a bundle of stress all the time. (Yeah, I know. You think other people’s opinions don’t influence you, but be honest. When you see a poll that relates to some decision you’re contemplating, course it weighs into the decision!)

4. There is stress in all stages of family-building.

Those who don’t have kids yet are stressing because they are trying to have them, or trying not to have them, and worrying about whether their decision is the right one: is this the right time? What if I put it off too long? Why can’t I get pregnant NOW?

In short: stress.

When you have one child, you’re obsessively worried about said child. You have to do everything right, and you know for sure if you screw up, your kid’s entire future will be shot, permanently and irretrievably lost. You worry about whether you’re reading the right number of minutes, teaching enough signs and attending the right enrichment programs. Why? Because you’ve never done this before, and it’s a big responsibility!

In short: stress.

When you have two kids, you have to split yourself in two for the first time. All that energy you devoted to one now has to make do for two. There’s guilt, because the older child took a hit in Mommy (or Daddy) attention.

In short: stress.

When you have three children,  you are always outnumbered. At least one of the older kids is virtually guaranteed to be going through some really hard stage while you’re also dealing with the time-intensive baby stage.

In short: stress.

When you have four or more, all the above applies, although you’re used to it. But you get so busy helping older kids with homework and driving them to activities that the youngest gets a paltry shadow of the intensive parent interaction that child #1 got. Kids bicker: there’s the “he’s touching me” “she’s watching me play” bit, the minding everyone’s business but their own, the every time you turn around the thing you just put away is out again, and there isn’t enough of you to go around and you know it’s your own fault that the house is a mess because you’re not willing to take the time to make the kids clean up themselves but for Heaven’s sake, it’s just easier to do it yourself most of the time, because you know what battles ensue in getting kids to do it!

In short: stress.

The point is, it doesn’t matter whether you have no kids or twenty, you’re going to be stressed, because that’s what human beings do to ourselves. Asking people to identify their own stress level, with no further breakdown of situation, is nonsense. Certain stages are more stressful than others, and sometimes it’s a shift in type rather than intensity. All these people have kids of different ages, and a different spread between their kids.

Besides, each person’s unique life circumstances play into the stress dynamic. Your mood on a given day affects how you answer those questions, for crying out loud–to say nothing of job stress, house hunting, kids’ projects, health, whether your kids are having trouble in school or sailing through–even whether toilet training is going well or poorly on the day they asked. To reduce all that complexity to a simple, bald statement like “three is the most stressful number of children”…that’s just a load of crap.

Opinion polls tell you nothing about reality. They tell you only people’s perception of it. I just wish we’d all keep that in mind, instead of running over the cliff of public opinion like a bunch of lemmings.

(Note: yes, I know lemmings don’t actually follow each other over cliffs. It’s a figure of speech.)

Sunday Snippets

I was missing last week from our get-together at RAnn’s This, That & The Other Thing. It was just too crazy a week, and I couldn’t make it! But I’m back this week…

On the heels of Julianna’s spring festival, I talked about school fundraisers.

This week’s “This Little Light” blog tour guest post was written by a youth minister friend of mine on the topic of sacramentals. Last week I hosted the inimitable Sarah Reinhard, who talked about the rubber meeting the road in your faith life.

This week’s 7QTs were devoted to Julianna’s education, specifically the decision not to move her to Catholic school. (As an aside, I should write about Julianna all the time. My hits always go through the roof. )

And one more post, because it’s particularly Catholic: Did Mary Suffer From Powdered Butt Syndrome? (Already several good comments on that one.)

Julianna (a 7QT post)

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The decision was made at the end of last week: Julianna will remain in public schools. I would like to say we made it, but the truth is that the Catholic school decided they simply couldn’t serve her. I was relieved, because for quite some time I’ve been moving toward the conclusion that she is where she should be, and I was dreading having to make the decision ourselves. Christian, however, was not so sanguine.

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As much as anything I think our disappointment stems from the lack that the Catholic school kids suffer by not having her in their midst. Ugh, I sound like one of those insufferable moms who think their kid’s very existence enriches the universe around them, right? Well, I can only plead guilty, but I do have a reason.

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I’ve said before how not-diverse my childhood was, and how difficult that made it for me to translate lessons of equality before God into action. My mom says I have a tendency toward “scrupulosity.” In this case, that means I’ve spent my entire life worrying about whether I’m treating people the same regardless of skin color–or, I discovered later, disability. Knowing something in theory is not the same as having the chance to put it into practice when the lessons are being formed. For this reason I say that kids need to be around my daughter at least as much as she needs to be around them. Other kids need that interaction.

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Our local Catholic school isn’t quite as homogenous as the one I grew up in, but it’s close enough. And last fall, we had a rather disheartening experience at the cub scout family campout, which is entirely Catholic kids. Exhibit A: during Mass out on the lawn, Julianna was reciting prayers loudly and not clearly, as she always does. She got several of those “looks” from the kids. You know, the “you are so weird, what is wrong with you?” looks. Afterward, there were a few little girls running around hand in hand. They were so cute, and Julianna went running over to join them. They, too, gave her The Look and gave her the cold shoulder.

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Understand that nothing like that has ever happened around the public school kids. The only explanation that makes any sense to me is exposure to diversity, or lack thereof.

Take a bow, girly girl

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I read something recently that said that although people with Down syndrome have a low intelligence quotient (Julianna’s IQ was measured at 60), they have an emotional quotient that’s much, much higher. That rings true; Julianna is enormously empathetic, sensitive to mood, and seems to be able to pick out the person in the room who most needs loving. As a society we are so focused on intelligence as the primary value, we’ve failed to recognize the contribution that a high emotional quotient has to offer.

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Although Julianna is reading at “level 2.” Level 4 is considered end of kindergarten. Not too shabby, methinks.

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Yesterday her school had a Mothers Tea. It was a concert followed by cookies and fruit punch. The kids were “warming up” with the music teacher when I arrived and sat down. I was just beyond the music teacher, and Julianna was so fixed on her, she didn’t see me at first. But when she did…well, those of you who have met Julianna know how she reacts to delight. Christian says her entire face expands to make room for the size of that smile. “BAH-EE!” she screamed, drowning out the other sixty kindergarteners. So stinking cute. They were doing songs about mothers, and every time they said the word “mom” during the performance, she pointed with her entire arm at me.

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I will not, however, pretend that she’s an angel. She is not. There is way too much brother-torment and button-pushing and deliberate obtuseness in my girl to justify that label. But I’m shredding the idea of seven quick takes now, and I need to mow the lawn. Have a great weekend!